Graham Reid | | <1 min read
Kurt Vile: Girl Called Alex
The improbably-named Philadelphian here opens this beguiling fifth album with the nine minutes-plus sorta-title track which lazily reassures his love/the listener that it's okay, he's fried, living low and lazy before a delightfully long skygaze-meets-Neil Young guitar part glistens off into the distance.
As a statement of intent it's enormously impressive and – after his terrific if darker folk-rock album Smoke Ring For My Halo – signals that now he's connecting more closely to the Church (the woozy Girl Called Alex) and Neil Halstead/Mojave 3 as this slips between electro-acoustic rock and blissed-out ambience.
If that previous album was about the emotional problems of touring this sounds like he's woken to a pretty day and had lift-off into transcendent psychedelic space where the drugs really do work.
His askew lyrics, pop smarts (Pure Pain, the self-probing Shame Chamber and bristling Snowflakes Are Dancing could/should be played on radio), mercurial guitar, occasional forays back to folk-rock (Too Hard) and coherent tone make for an understated gem.
And the 10 minute-plus closer Goldtone (again Dylanesque in his allusive lyric) neatly delivers you back to the start for repeat plays.
Album of the year votes open here.
Like the sound of this? Then try this.
Vassilis - Apr 15, 2013
Review: Short, 'dense', to-the-point; poetic in a strange manner| Music: What a brilliant record this is! Been listening to it the whole weekend while driving some 1000km crossing the country..worked perfectly for me!
SaveJos - Apr 17, 2013
Yes, this Vile piece works a treat! :)
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